


Day Two: Sharing a Bed

by Gloriousred



Series: Nygmobblepot Week 2018 [2]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Arkham Asylum, Ed's Apartment, M/M, Nygmobblepot Week 2018, Post-Episode: s04e11 Queen Takes Knight, Post-Episode: s04e14 Reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 15:08:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14083617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gloriousred/pseuds/Gloriousred
Summary: Two Nygmobblepot stories from my sister and I where Oswald and Ed reminisce about when they first lived together at two different moments in time.





	1. Just a Taste

**Author's Note:**

> My sister and I's contributions to day two. We've finally found a moment to post them :)  
> Chapter 1 is hers (set after episode 14),   
> Chapter 2 is mine (set after episode 11).
> 
> Enjoy :)

The breakout at Arkham was more tiresome, and publicized, than Riddler had anticipated it would be. There was no possible way that they could return to  _ Cherry’s _ while things cooled off. For one, Jim was well-aware that he was currently staying there as Lee’s right hand man. He’d find him within hours. And speaking of Lee, she would surely refuse to house them if Oswald was involved. Unfortunately. That made killing her all the harder. 

_ Oh, still going on about that, are you?  _ Riddler heard someone say. He looked at the rearview mirror, finding in the darkness Oswald’s feathery hair facing forward across the plastic pane. So it hadn’t been him.  _ Come on,  _ he heard again. That voice was… almost his.  _ You think you’re the only one that gets to pester their other half at the very worst moments? _

Startled, he braked suddenly the car he’d stolen at Arkham. A hard thud after, cars honked as they braked and later zoomed past him, but thankfully no actual collision occurred. Stupid. He couldn’t let himself get distracted. Riddler recovered quickly, and the vehicle did the same. The passenger behind, however, did not. 

“Riddler!” Oswald exclaimed angrily as he stumbled back into a sitting position. Right. He didn’t have a seatbelt. “If you’re going to brake so hard, shout a warning next time!” Even bruised and clearly exhausted from the tone of his voice, he was the one commanding the situation. 

Riddler sighed. He gripped the wheel tighter.“Sorry, Oswald. An…  _ inconvenience  _ appeared on the road. It’s fine now.”

_ Oh, wow, an inconvenience! I never insulted you like that, and you did much worse to me,  _ he heard the voice in his head say.

“Ed. Go away. I’m busy,” he whispered through gritted teeth. “You aren’t even supposed to  _ be  _ here. I’m stronger. I’m in control.”

Ed chuckled, whistling.  _ How well did that work out for me? _

Riddler rolled his eyes as the car passed the bridge leading into Gotham. Even from the outside, the city looked filthy. Contaminated. Desolate. Would they find a place to rest on its streets, under a bridge? His suit would be  _ hell  _ to wash afterwards.

_ Here I was thinking you were the smart one,  _ Ed said cheekily. 

“I  _ am  _ the smart one!”

Oswald groaned loudly from the back of the car. Riddler sighed. Great. He was shouting at a voice in his head. Through the rearview mirror, he saw Oswald’s face peek through the plastic pane connecting both sides of the car. Mostly his blue eyes, red-rimmed and concerned. Scared, even. 

“Riddler?” Oswald asked. “Are you all right?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t want to lie, nor tell Oswald that his other self had somehow managed to resurface to bother him. 

_ Your right breast pocket, genius. Check there. _

Oswald’s eyes did not disappear from the rearview mirror. “Where are we going? It’s almost night.”

He hated listening to the little voice, but he knew it might be worth a try. So his hands felt his right breast pocket, and found the outline of a set of keys.  _ Oh _ . 

Grinning like a Cheshire cat, he looked up at Oswald to meet his gaze. “A diamond plate, a glowing grate, a place you never leave. What am I?”

Oswald huffed, tired and irritated. “You know what, I don’t need to know.” Riddler heard his form sink heavily into the seat. He was muttering rather loudly under his breath. “God, I forgot about the riddles, I did  _ not  _ miss the riddles for every goddamn thing.”  __

He rolled his eyes again, making a right. “We’re going  _ home _ , Oswald.”

“You could have just told me that,” he replied bitterly, his eyes disappearing back into the darkness. 

* * *

Riddler was pleased to find his apartment in Grundy Street had remained unoccupied, even after all this time, after he’d moved out during the mayoral campaign to live with -

_ Oswald, Oswald, Oswald! Jesus! It’s all you think about,  _ Ed complained.  _ You know I can hear your thoughts, right? Could you please just stop bringing him up as part of every sentence? _

Ed’s voice, within his head, cracked. Not even as a figment of his imagination or conscience or whatever the hell he was was he threatening. 

_ For having shot the guy, you sure are fond of him, Riddleman. _

Riddler sighed, struggling to take the keys out of the slot in the door. His hands trembled. “Look who’s talking,” he whispered. “You brought him here first.”

Before he could realize what had happened, Oswald had limped closer and placed his hand over his, helping him remove the keys. 

Well, one could  _ say  _ Oswald’s hand was in his. But truly, they were right above, guiding their movements and steadying them so they could finally accomplish their task. His touch was light, and frigid, and still doubtful. Still scared. 

“I didn’t realize  _ this  _ was your definition of home,” Oswald said, chuckling slightly as they stepped into the apartment, Riddler holding the door for him and closing it once he came in. Everything was still the same, except covered in a few layers of dust and neglect. Riddler hung the bowler hat and emerald jacket in a nearby bureau and, without really noticing, approached the bed and shook the covers clear of any dirt and wrinkles as Oswald limped to the kitchen, his hand leaving marks as he gently touched every surface he walked into. A trail of reminiscing. 

It was night by the time they’d arrived, so the green neon lights from the building beside them snuck in through the partially-opened windows, giving the room an eerie, timeless feel.

“You’re probably very tired,” Oswald said, leaning on the counter. “After busting me out and all. Thanks, by the way.”

He nodded. “You’re welcome, I guess. And don’t even try denying that you’re not tired.” With a small smile and a head tilt, he spoke, “take the bed. We’ll plan our next move tomorrow morning.”

Oswald inhaled sharply, yet quietly. If they hadn’t been the only two people in the room, Riddler might’ve missed it. “ _ Our  _ next move?” Oswald asked after a moment, stepping cautiously toward the bed. He sat on it with mild difficulty. Even from a modest distance, Riddler could tell his knee was swollen, jutting out further than what he remembered. 

_ Our? There never was an “our” in the equation, Riddleman.  You just wanted to bust him out to bargain with Sofia Falcone. Exchange him for the Narrows. He’s making you soft, isn’t he? He tends to do that to you. _

“Yes,  _ our.  _ Now go to sleep. You need the rest.”

Oswald sighed, defeated. He took hold of his right leg with both hands and lifted it to the bed as he shifted to a lying position. He groaned when it landed on the comforter with a creak of the springs. He hastily opened the covers and snuck in. He sighed comfortably. 

Riddler moved toward the couch. With Oswald asleep, he could allow himself to be more  _ expressive  _ with Ed and figure out how to get him to shut up for once and for all. He sat down, and, turning to the bed, he noticed Oswald wasn’t quite asleep yet. 

“Riddler,” he said, struggling somewhat with the word. Still getting used to it. “You need to go to sleep, too.”

He chuckled lightly, amused and surprised at the other man’s concern. “I will. I need to get a few things done beforehand,” he explained, though he didn't know why. He was ranting. Why was he ranting?

_ Soft, I’m telling you.  _

“You forget that I know you,” Oswald said quietly, almost intimately. A fond smile took over his lips. “When I was mayor I remember you used to stay up all night filing papers, or managing transports, or doing some other type of business. There were like, four empty cups of coffee around your desk every morning. Olga asked me about them once. Back then, I didn’t realize notice. But I’ve had some time to think on those times and I fear that you’re an insomniac,” he declared wistfully, so much so it barely sounded like a prognosis and more like an anecdote.

Riddler caught himself smiling. “Well, the underworld and Gotham weren’t going to rule themselves. And I found that the night was the only time I could really concentrate and get things done.”

“Still,” Oswald said, his head barely poking out from above the heavy comforter. “Those days are in the past. Rest. There’s no work to be done.” He patted his left side invitingly, yet still somewhat timidly. “If you want, we can share the bed. I don’t mind. I don’t move around a lot when I sleep.”

_ Oh, I remember there was another time when such an invitation would’ve been heaven and earth for you, Riddleman. Don’t see why, though,  _ Ed teased and later deadpanned. Riddler burned with a silent rage at his own mind - and at the truth of the statement.

He shook his head, displaying a wide smile and how adept he was at flapping his hands about. “Truly, it’s fine, old bird. I’ll sleep on the couch.” He then added after a moment, “and I  _ will  _ sleep, I promise.”

Still not satisfied, but done with fighting a losing battle, Oswald let himself sink back into the covers and pillows. For some reason, Riddler felt disappointed. Ed, helpful as ever, elucidated him on the matter. 

_ You would’ve said yes had he asked one more time, wouldn’t you have?  _ he asked, his voice nothing more than a whisper. For once, kind. No, solemn. 

He needed a drink. And to keep his mind off Oswald.

A few minutes later, when Riddler had finished making himself a cup of coffee, worried of what his dreams might turn out to be, he heard Oswald muttering under his breath - imperceptible had the room not been so quiet - “God, I missed this bed, it’s so warm and soft and full of his scent.”

Chuckling quietly, Riddler sat on the couch, taking a book from the coffee table in front of him. He flipped to a random page and began reading. But, clearly, he was distracted. From the corner of his eye, he caught the emerald reflections of the lights in Oswald’s feathery hair. The slight bump of his knee right beside the edge of the comforter. The small groans escaping his throat. And right before he knew what he was doing, Riddler went toward the bed, facing Oswald’s closed eyes, and sat beside him. 

That is when he noticed that he was frowning. Whimpering. Shivering.

His hands were on his right knee and he was twitching, his eyes trembling as if threatening to open at any second. Riddler, alarmed, focused for any sign of what was wrong. Was he even awake?

“N - no, please,” he heard Oswald mumble. His voice cracked. He started trembling again. Scared, doubtful. “Please, leave me alone. You have no idea how I’ve suffered.  _ Please. _ ”

A nightmare. One of the most terrifying men in all of Gotham’s history, cowering at his own imagination. How funny. 

_ For the love of God, Riddleman, back away! Who knows what he’ll do to us if he wakes up,  _ Ed instructed inside his head. And, this time, he had a point. 

But Riddler for once refused to follow reason. 

He placed his hand over Oswald’s, rubbing the knee gently. Oswald cowered at his touch. Scared. Doubtful. But soon afterward he melted. He even leaned slightly toward his palm. So Riddler kneeled beside him on the bed and followed the pattern. Mesmerized, he let his hands wander through the injury, tracing it in his memory. Finding the bones. How they had rotated. Where the original impact was. Theorizing what it could’ve been.

_ Thinking like a Medical Examiner. God, you’re insufferable,  _ Ed’s voice huffed. 

Riddler found it easier to ignore then, entranced so deeply in discovering the mechanics of Oswald’s knee. Though it was swollen, it served as a rather good specimen of a rotation. And, well, Oswald seemed to like it. 

But the nightmare didn’t cease. Oswald whimpered and cried out, though his hands, white-knuckled and thin, had let go of their iron grip around the injury. Riddler’s back was starting to hurt. He stood up, and stretched. He was about to return to the book and the coffee and his thoughts when he felt something yank him back. Oswald’s hand in his. White-knuckled and thin, with an iron grip around him. 

“I guess that’s you asking one more time,” he whispered. With slender legs and some impressive self-control, he managed to get inside the bed. Above the covers, between the edge of the bed and Oswald’s thin frame, he lied down. He stared at the ceiling, Oswald’s hand still tightly intertwined around his. 

And maybe it was the caffeine or the pungent scent of lavender that trailed the slender man beside him, but Riddler’s mind finally quieted. He placed their hands on his chest, and let his head sink into the memory foam pillows. With his other hand, he took off his glasses and set them on the night table. 

Oswald’s whole body shifted toward his like a child hiding behind their mother’s legs. Riddler’s presence seemed to have a calming effect on the other’s dreams, for his arrhythmic breathing and his whimpers subsided to a gentle, slow, slight snore.  Unlike how he otherwise would’ve, Riddler did not shy away at his touch.  _ There’s nothing wrong with just a taste of what you’ve always wanted _ , he thought to himself, his eyes closing and his fingers twisting around Oswald’s in their joined hands. 

Without realizing it, both smiled in that exact moment caught by the neon lights and the faraway sounds of sirens searching for two men whom they’d never think they’d find like this, with their hands lacing together what remained of a friendship shattered by circumstance and healed slowly by chance, a tiny spark of what once was a bonfire. Two of the city’s most dangerous men, sharing a bed. 

* * *

Once the Riddler’s breathing had settled, Oswald ventured to place his head on his chest, rising and falling slightly. He could hear his heartbeat. When Riddler made no move to remove him, though he knew he shouldn’t have, his smile widened. He let the man’s cologne overpower his senses. The times were different, yes, but there were still nights in which he mourned the  _ might-have-been  _ of this scenario, where that bitter and tangy and fresh scent burned his nostrils.

His frigid blue eyes opened slowly. He could barely make out Ed’s outline in the darkness of the apartment. All he caught was shadows outlined in green. 

“You are still  _ so  _ predictable,” he whispered as he sighed and closed his eyes again, settling closer to Ed’s frame. Letting himself dream for a moment that everything, that  _ he _ , would always be like this.


	2. Delicate Obsession

It is a young, blonde nurse that chains him to his bed, silent and vigilant as an owl in the night. Jerome's laughter echoes beneath Oswald's weak protests as he cooperates, emptiness the only real sound that escapes either vocalizing, agonizing soul. There is no mercy in her features, nothing but strength to her grip as she tightens the restraints around his wrists and ankles. She's tactless though she's careful, her duty seemingly the center of her world. 

“Shhhhh!” Oswald hisses as her touch reaches his injury, partially as an outlet for the pain he feels trickling like pins up his spine, and surreptitiously as a plea for silence from the madness reverberating endlessly off the silver walls. 

“What's the matter b-113?” She asks without interest, without intention. It takes Oswald a minute to be able to speak with full confidence that no whimper will break the command of his voice. When he does there are daggers in his pale irises, hinting at the solitary iceberg, the killer penguin, shaping his spirit. 

“My right leg is injured,” The Penguin spits as best he can from the position he's been forced to adopt, lying supine, defenseless on the dismal bed. Noticing a minimal relaxation in the nurse’s grip, Oswald flexes his long-suffering knee, recoiling in search of comfort his hands can’t give constricted muscles aching from stress and meager blankets.

“Beggars can't be choosers,” Is the nurse’s answer, meeting his stare without guile, without expression. She reaches forward then with both hands and janks his leg back down securing the bond with the same force as the others, undeterred by her patient’s blood-curling, heartbreaking scream. Betrayal rises to meet madness on the atmosphere, both somehow perfect companions in the void. 

It is with tears brewing in his eyes and breaths caught in his lungs that Oswald recovers his composure. Somehow the iceberg of a man and the manly penguin retain their war for control. “Don't you know who I am?” Oswald demands, raising his gaze from the pillow, head heavy but ego weightier.

Her eyes are blue and unafraid. His mother's eyes as a knife tore through her heart. Oswald catches himself wishing those eyes where his own, not those of the woman holding him down. “Yes, I do, Mr. Cobblepot,” she claims without doubt, without respect, “but the way I see it, there's no greater crime, deeper injury, than the murder of a child.” A sad, infinitesimal smile takes shape in her lips, gentle enough it could be mistaken for a reflex of her facial muscles. As Oswald rests his head back on the pillow and delicate raindrops begin descending like steps on the windowsill behind and above him, he realizes there may have been indifference, but there was malice there too.

The minute his back straightens, the once-receding pain crests like waves by the shore, releasing the tears and air he’d held onto. Like a livewire bleeding electricity, shocks spread throughout his limbs and into his head. The Penguin shivers beneath his covers, cold and suffering, the undeniable ache exacerbated by his helplessness. 

In that moment, realization strikes him through the gloom, chilling him to the core. As the pain ebbs and flows, cycles between unbearable and known, he allows the torture to mistreat him, clean him, absolve him of the guilt he carries from the past. Not unlike an animal, he steels himself against the combined abuse of the inclement weather and his own circumstances, hoping to find comfort beyond the confines of the moment.

Slowly, he allows himself to sink into delirium, his icy eyes watching images between fantasy and reality, memories no longer his to touch. He pictures his mother at his side, rubbing soothingly at the crevices of his neck, wiping a sheen of sweat from his brow he hardly notices. She whispers sweet nothings from his childhood, and when he looks directly at her, her eyes are blue and unafraid.

He pictures Martin next, close enough by his bedside to touch with one quivering finger. The child directs his attention to Oswald’s injury almost immediately, placing his delicate hands at the epicentre, wrapped around his ankle where the veins have corrupted the angry skin.

The illusions soothe him, but inevitably reveal a truth he’d attempted to conceal, a loneliness, a brokenness, goodness without witness or reward. For all the Penguin’s bravado and cleverness, the iceberg remains closer to the center of his being, an indelibility, an immortality, proclaiming he'll belong long after everything else is gone.

Oswald believes it a cruel trick of his subconscious to conjure Ed then, walking into his cell in his trademark emerald suit, bowler hat and gun. He appears returned to his old self, secure in a way Oswald no longer is, subdued and shivering. The tables have turned considerably since their last meeting, and if he were any other man, Oswald would have berated himself for thinking Ed any less broken and indelible as he.

There is kindness in his eyes as he approaches, a look between understanding and outrage. Ed quickly removes his hat, setting it beside him on the bed as he takes a seat by Oswald's torso. “Hello, Sleepyhead,” his mouth seems to say, mahogany irises eternal, unchanged from the man that first spoke those words, that said them daily at the breakfast table. For a minute, that is the only thought in either head, the way the past had repeated in the most peculiar way. 

“Hi, Ed,” is all Oswald can bring himself to answer as Ed gets to work on his bindings. Air returns to his lungs as each chain is undone, buckle unbuckled. The relief is immediate and flooding as Oswald is finally able to hold his leg and rub the muscles, Ed’s hand meeting his at the ankle for an instant before replacing it to wipe at the fringe on his forehead. A smile creeps onto Oswald's face gently, small enough to be missed by anyone but the man he’d grown to love with greater ardour than the sun. It is that same man that opens his arms, enveloping the still-quivering Penguin in his warmth.

“You’re back,” Oswald voices brokenly, holding onto Ed’s shoulders, immersed in irrational hope from knowing what he holds is not an apparition of guilt.

“And you're leaving,” he hears Ed answer back, goal-oriented as always, while paradoxically running his palms down Oswald’s back soothingly. Next thing he knows, however, his purple fur-lined coat is on his shoulders, and Ed’s eyes seem to beg for cooperation. “Better get a move on,” Ed adds with a flourish, ensuring the coat is on straight before taking steps towards the door and motioning for Penguin to follow. 

Jerome's laughter echoes on, consuming the whole of the toxic void.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. Feel free to leave a comment :)


End file.
